Things have been a bit quiet on Grace to Abide this year. After a brief burst of enthusiasm around Christmas, life just continued to be too demanding and messy for me to get my creative juices flowing again and find the time to keep up with my blog.
What's been going on for us this year? Well, at the start of April this happened:
Then just two days later, this happened:
Yes, after months of chasing after mortgages (which never materialised), getting finances together and viewing over 20 properties with a bored pre-schooler in tow, we finally found our future home. It's a perfect fit for our family, and such a clear answer to prayer in many ways - ticking so many boxes. We feel very blessed and I can't wait to move in and finally unpack those bags which....yes really...have been sitting there for over a whole year. Not to mention the bags that have been stored in other people's attics for over ten years!
Of course, just to make things even more stressful, we decided to have a new baby at the exact same time.....crazy I know! After a couple of sad miscarriages in recent years, we were so happy to welcome baby Joy into our family - our fourth and, I've decided after experiencing a truly horrible pregnancy in which I was sick for the entire 9 months, definitely (hopefully) our last! We are so grateful to God for this beautiful, healthy baby girl, and are loving being a family of six.
And so now, I'm living in the crazy interim period of choosing paint colours, carpets, furniture and appliances for our new house whilst at the same time caring for a newborn and trying to keep my other three kids fed, dressed and arriving at school with all the necessary equipment on next-to-no sleep. We're still in our temporary, rented accommodation while Hubbie is overseeing the necessary remodelling which needs to be done on the new house, but we hope to be able to move in about three weeks' time (fingers crossed, touch wood, and all other manner of superstitious mumbo-jumbo).
So as I look back over this last, rather difficult year, I can see God teaching me lessons of patience and contentment in less-than-ideal circumstances. Perhaps the biggest lesson for this control-loving, home proud perfectionist has been to learn to live surrounded by boxes, piles of 'stuff', and the general clutter that comes from living in a house that is not your own but which already has loads of clutter from previous occupants. I hope I've become more 'chilled' and laid-back as a result, but that doesn't stop me dreaming of perfectly aligned mason jars on my kitchen shelves and IKEA storage units.
Abide in Him!
What's been going on for us this year? Well, at the start of April this happened:
Then just two days later, this happened:
Yes, after months of chasing after mortgages (which never materialised), getting finances together and viewing over 20 properties with a bored pre-schooler in tow, we finally found our future home. It's a perfect fit for our family, and such a clear answer to prayer in many ways - ticking so many boxes. We feel very blessed and I can't wait to move in and finally unpack those bags which....yes really...have been sitting there for over a whole year. Not to mention the bags that have been stored in other people's attics for over ten years!
Of course, just to make things even more stressful, we decided to have a new baby at the exact same time.....crazy I know! After a couple of sad miscarriages in recent years, we were so happy to welcome baby Joy into our family - our fourth and, I've decided after experiencing a truly horrible pregnancy in which I was sick for the entire 9 months, definitely (hopefully) our last! We are so grateful to God for this beautiful, healthy baby girl, and are loving being a family of six.
And so now, I'm living in the crazy interim period of choosing paint colours, carpets, furniture and appliances for our new house whilst at the same time caring for a newborn and trying to keep my other three kids fed, dressed and arriving at school with all the necessary equipment on next-to-no sleep. We're still in our temporary, rented accommodation while Hubbie is overseeing the necessary remodelling which needs to be done on the new house, but we hope to be able to move in about three weeks' time (fingers crossed, touch wood, and all other manner of superstitious mumbo-jumbo).
So as I look back over this last, rather difficult year, I can see God teaching me lessons of patience and contentment in less-than-ideal circumstances. Perhaps the biggest lesson for this control-loving, home proud perfectionist has been to learn to live surrounded by boxes, piles of 'stuff', and the general clutter that comes from living in a house that is not your own but which already has loads of clutter from previous occupants. I hope I've become more 'chilled' and laid-back as a result, but that doesn't stop me dreaming of perfectly aligned mason jars on my kitchen shelves and IKEA storage units.
Abide in Him!
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